MyLarry and I were following a girl on a bike back to her camp to help her unlock her car (she'd locked her keys in upon arrival and was in tears out on the Esplanade looking for help). We stopped at the Trailblazer to pick up the jimmy set, while we were stopped, Larry adjusted her bike for her. Immediately, people came over and were asking him to fix this or that on their bikes! In the road. No word of mouth, just hey, that guy is fixing bikes, maybe he can do mine.... took forever to start saying no and move on.

AntiM wrote:MyLarry and I were following a girl on a bike back to her camp to help her unlock her car (she'd locked her keys in upon arrival and was in tears out on the Esplanade looking for help). We stopped at the Trailblazer to pick up the jimmy set, while we were stopped, Larry adjusted her bike for her. Immediately, people came over and were asking him to fix this or that on their bikes! In the road. No word of mouth, just hey, that guy is fixing bikes, maybe he can do mine.... took forever to start saying no and move on.

UpdateI have updated this thread moving discussion and organization of the camp away from this horribly mangled thread. To be clear, this new thread is being posted to seek out other burners who happen to share an interest in self-support bicycle touring. It is not a place for discussion of your opinions on touring, touring to the burn, why you like cars more than bicycles, or any other non-camp related exchanges. If you'd like to tell the entire ePlaya community how stupid you think bikes are or the people who ride them happen to be please use this thread.

AntiM wrote:MyLarry and I were following a girl on a bike back to her camp to help her unlock her car (she'd locked her keys in upon arrival and was in tears out on the Esplanade looking for help). We stopped at the Trailblazer to pick up the jimmy set, while we were stopped, Larry adjusted her bike for her. Immediately, people came over and were asking him to fix this or that on their bikes! In the road. No word of mouth, just hey, that guy is fixing bikes, maybe he can do mine.... took forever to start saying no and move on.

When I was young I tried playing guitar to get girls. ...

Maybe there are girls out there who think a bike-stand is sexy

-- Inspire or empower your neighbor, the rest is a waste of precious time

Saguache wrote:I have one suggestion already for a bicycle repair zone. This makes some sense, but its also one of those things that's already done. Cycle repair may become so ubiquitous that you'll be able to get your breaks adjusted next to every bar if we're not careful.

As Trilobyte said, that would belong in the Theme Camps section of the board. But your headline of "...Bike to the Burn" is clearly a Transportation matter.

Now.... Be advised, there is a TREMENDOUS DEMAND for bicycle repair in Black Rock City. The last camp I know of who offered large scale bicycle repair gave up of sheer exhaustion and disgust. If I recall correctly they last operated in 2006, and I remember seeing a couple hundred people in line at opening time every day. And some of those customers had "entitlement issues", which was the main complaint of the repair crew.

Myself, I organized a Theme Camp in 2007 where we added bicycle repair as a secondary feature. I had mentioned this in our Theme Camp application, and Playa Info listed us as a bicycle repair camp on their big "resources" blackboard. Even with four or five technicians on duty we were quickly overwhelmed, and on Wednesday or Thursday I had to go down to Playa Info and wipe us off the blackboard. That made the rest of the week manageable.

This year I operated by myself largely by word-of-mouth, and I was plenty busy.

I heartily support your idea of running a bicycle repair camp. The smiles and "thank yous" you will earn are priceless. Just be prepared for quite an onslaught of customers.

In 2010 there was a camp near center that was repairing and lending bikes. Think they were from Las Vegas IIRC. I tried to volunteer as a pretty good mechanic to help with repairs, but they seemed both full up and exceptionally busy. I also spent a lot of time walking out onto the playa, well past the man and the temple, and returning broken lender bikes.

Seems to me that these endeavors are very well intentioned, but that there are a lot of burners who just don't respect that effort and material investment that went into bringing bikes, tools, skills, and spare parts to the playa. Given the nature of the economy on the playa there's nothing to stop you from potlatching, but I'm less likely to chose this route. In any event, know that I sure appreciate the effort that you and others have put into things like this Elliot

-- Inspire or empower your neighbor, the rest is a waste of precious time

I like how you only chose one of the two important words (and a definition that uses "critical" instead of "close"), the one that you could twist into something closer to what you wanted it to mean, when what that sentence actually means is that people will be "taking a close look and examining" what you post, as well as "passing judgments on the merits of it".

The point stands: once you post on ePlaya, people are allowed to respond to your posts. No-one is required to respond in a way that the OP desires. The posters here have a wealth of knowledge about all aspects of the Burn and are here because they want to be, you can learn as much from their disagreement with a project as you can when they agree.

None of this can stop you from doing what you want in the real world, just don't expect to get a bunch of people only nodding "yes" on here.

Back to the origination of the post in the first place and my point, this wasn't supposed to be a debate. I mean, we could put em-pha-sis on any part of any word in any sentence and then spend hours playing the part of Captain Obvious. You see the problem with this sort of exchange is that it just ends up going no where.

Oh yeah, its a public forum, I can see that and it was a "critical" component of my choice to post this thread here in the first place. People can say anything they want -- anything from "I think your idea is a bad one and here's why" to posting a picture of people being killed and maimed -- and I suppose if you bend your perception of each of these opinions they could all be considered "critical". And obviously I cannot stop you from saying anything you might like, but I can, largely because this is a public forum, ask that you at least show a little respect for another human being and post accordingly.

Given that this thread is now four pages long I'm starting to think that this sort of exchange is unlikely. So, I've gone and used another feature of this here public forum; there is now this thread for posting your "critical" opinions of the camp I'd like to put together or for that matter anything else you'd like to say about bikes, cyclists in general, me or my mother if you're so inclined. And then there's another post back in Theme Camps in which I hope to find people who are interested in building a camp around the aforementioned theme.

-- Inspire or empower your neighbor, the rest is a waste of precious time

Respect gets respect. You continue to astound me, I have to say. It's like barging into someone's living room at 2am sloppy drunk and half naked screaming at people to give you and something to eat.. and dammit WHERE'S THE BEER?

Saguache wrote:Back to the origination of the post in the first place and my point, this wasn't supposed to be a debate. I mean, we could put em-pha-sis on any part of any word in any sentence and then spend hours playing the part of Captain Obvious. You see the problem with this sort of exchange is that it just ends up going no where.

I know it's long, but please read the whole thing.

You have completely ignored what I was saying when I posted the original sentence. It doesn't matter at all if you posted something intending there to be no debate - this is not a dictatorship, you do not get to decide how people respond to your posts.

Once anybody posts something on eplaya, other people are free to respond to it however they would like. We (the Mods) ask people to try to answer a question before getting snarky, but we don't penalize people or give time-outs because someone didn't answer a question before being snarky.

Your new thread has emphasized that you're creating an on-playa camp about cycling, and was actually worded really well. You'll also notice that the response was respectful. People tend to respond to posts based on the ..."tone" (for lack of a better word) of the post. Being text-based, unless people have met you in person all we have to go by is the implied tone of the words on a screen.

Most of the "regulars", which is a rotating cast of 100's, know each other (we have an annual ePlaya Meet & Greet during Burn week so people can meet in real life) & have actual friendships. Some like each-other, some love each-other, some loathe each-other with a passion bordering on mania. You know, a normal group of people. From that comes a little better understanding of what one of those people is saying, but even then there is miscommunication.

You had a rough entry into the ePlaya. My suggestion would be to let this thread die (by not responding to people), or to let it go it's merry way & just ignore it, and explore the rest of what eplaya has to offer. Lots of us had rough entries here, hell, I was called an " obsequious pontificating newbie cultish moonie freak" after one of my first posts, which, if you know me, is too much funny in one spread of words. I'm still here 9 years later, and I'm still at the Burn.

Spend some time exploring & posting in other threads. This is actually a great crowd, and very few people are going to even remember this dust-up in a month as anything more than "another bike to the burn" thread.

It's a camping trip in the desert, not the redemption of the fallen world - Cryptofishist

Saguache wrote:"...why you like cars more than bicycles... how stupid you think bikes are or the people who ride them happen to be..." etc.

Just an observation:

Comments like these, scattered throughout your argument, are really not helpful to your case. Snark aside, the opposition's argument is basically this:

The ride to the burn is riddled with potential for disaster, regardless of your means of transportation. We try, as "good burners" to lessen our negative impact on others in any and every way possible. It is our collective responsibility. Arguably the most important one. This includes on the way in and out.

Given our knowledge of the roads, the volume on the roads, the types and states of the vehicles (and ALL the various conditions of the drivers).... and our understanding of what a cyclist in this mix -- let alone a gaggle of cyclists -- throws into the mix... unfortunately for you, the response was less than positive.

And rightly so. (keeping in mind that no mention of "back roads" was mentioned in the original post)

Response styles vary in here. Some serve only to inflame, and unfortunately they did -- backing you into a very defensive corner from which you then threw out whatever you had at hand.

Unfortunately, one of those bombs was the "hater" label.

Which works naught for me.

I can't imagine a venue (that isn't specifically a biking venue) in which as much of the population shows up with bikes in tow... The reality is that bikes and biking are a huge part of the burn and it's an aspect that many here take very seriously -- in a very positive way (I feel compelled to add).

To completely skip the collective impact factor with a "hater" label was a bit of a fatal move for this thread and unfortunately ensured that almost everything that followed was going to fail in every way.

Which kind of sucks. Because it's an important topic for both sides, and neither side gets properly presented let alone digested.

We know many things. One is that biking to the burn on ANY of the regular roads is a bad idea. Another is that Junglesmacks -- great guy that he really is -- is going to unceremoniously try to poke a burning hot rod up the ass of anyone who presents it. These things we can't change.

We just can't.

So I suppose this is what we have to work with.

...or we can just continue bashing heads until our ears bleed. Which is just as well I guess, since neither side was ever really using them for listening....

Worry is a misuse of imagination“She hadblue skin, And so didhe. He kept it hid And so did she.They searched for blueTheir whole life through, Then passed right by- And never knew.” Shel Silverstein